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This paper aims to provide a theoretical overview of the factors influencing user trust in online games. It offers a set of guidelines that help online game marketers to better understand how users form their trust in online games, and fully reap the benefits of this new medium.

This paper reviews literature from the perspectives of considering an online game player as both a consumer of web‐based entertainment and a computer user. It explores factors related to the web environment as well as those of the games themselves. In particular, it examines a user's perceptions about the company, the online gaming site, and an individual game.

A number of factors influencing user trust in online games are largely within the control of the company sponsoring the sites or marketing the games. Based on the analysis of these factors, this paper provides a set of guidelines that would help marketers win user trust in their online gaming products or services.

Firms promoting online games can take guidance in how to build user trust through paying attention to building brand recognition, enhancing usability and appeal, as well as providing security assurance both at the web sites and within the individual games.

This paper is based on current research in consumer trust, both offline and online, and represents an original attempt at analyzing theoretically the factors influencing user trust in online games. It provides a framework for empirical testing of the propositions outlined in the paper.

This study aims to examine the impact of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use as an engagement motivational factors on customer e-trust and e-retention in online shopping.

By using deductive approach, quantitative methods and purposive sampling technique, this study has collected the data from 295 young online customers to enhance an understanding of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use in an online shopping context.

The findings revealed interesting insights where reliability is the most significant predictor of customer e-trust in online shopping, followed by perceived ease of use and website design. In addition, a significant mediating effect of e-trust is found between customer e-retention, website design, reliability and perceived ease of use.

Future research is recommended to predict the antecedents of online engagement motivational factors with value co-creation and co-creation experience in online shopping context.

This study offers fresh insights about driving elements and impediments of online customer retention. Customer engagement comprising of website design, reliability and perceived ease of use appear to influence the online customer retention through direct and indirect effect.

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the mediating effect of trust on the relationship between consumers' social motivation and online purchase intentions in the context of social media marketing in the fashion industry of Sri Lanka.

The sample selection was done using a convenience sampling strategy. An online survey was conducted, and data gathered from consumers who worked for a range of organizations, including universities in the Colombo district (Sri Lanka).

The results illustrated that social motivation has a significant positive effect on trust as well as online purchase intentions. And they further demonstrated that a consumer's level of trust has a significant impact on their online purchase intentions. Trust was also found to partially mediate the relationship between social motivation and online purchase intention.

The study was solely focused on the Sri Lankan fashion industry. Consumer behavior relating to other industries may differ. Therefore, this model can be further developed to encompass other industries in future studies.

The study contributes to practical solutions in the development of consumer behavior (in the context of social media marketing). Stakeholders in the fashion industry may take the suggestions of this research, such as how to incorporate “trust” in social media marketing to attract and retain customers, into consideration in their future decision making.

This study is the first study in the Sri Lankan context to assess the mediating effect of trust on the relationship between consumers' social motivation and online purchase intentions in the context of social media marketing in the fashion industry of Sri Lanka. Overall, the results offer implications that align with existing theories and contribute to practical solutions in the development of consumer behavior (in the context of social media marketing).

The purpose of this paper is to examine an integrated model of factors affecting attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. The paper introduces an integrated model of the roles of perceived website reputation, relative advantage, perceived website image, and trust that affect attitudes toward online shopping.

A structured and self-administered online survey was employed targeting online shoppers of a reputable online retailer in Jordan; MarkaVIP. A sample of 273 of online shoppers was involved in the online survey. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs, unidimensionality, validity, and composite reliability (CR). Structural path model analysis was also used to test the proposed research model and hypotheses.

The empirical findings of this study indicate that perceived website reputation, relative advantage, perceived website image, and trust have directly and indirectly affected consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Online consumers’ shopping attitudes are mainly affected by perceived relative advantage and trust. Trust is a product of relative advantage and that the later is a function of perceived website reputation. Relative advantage and perceived website reputation are key predictors of perceived website image. Perceived website image was found to be a direct predictor of trust. Also, the authors found that 26 percent of variation in online shopping attitudes was directly caused by relative advantage, trust, and perceived website image.

The research examined online consumers’ attitudes toward one website only therefore the generalizability of the research finding is limited to the local Jordanian website; MarkaVIP. Future research is encouraged to conduct comparative studies between local websites and international ones, e.g., Amazon and e-bay in order to shed lights on consumers’ attitudes toward both websites. The findings are limited to online shoppers in Jordan. A fruitful area of research is to conduct a comparative analysis between online and offline attitudes toward online shopping behavior. Also, replications of the current study’s model in different countries would most likely strengthen and validate its findings. The design of the study is quantitative using an online survey to measure online consumers’ attitudes through a cross-sectional design. Future research is encouraged to use qualitative research design and methodology to provide a deeper understanding of consumers’ attitudes and behaviors toward online and offline shopping in Jordan and elsewhere.

The paper supports the importance of perceived website reputation, relative advantage, trust, and perceived web image as keys drivers of attitudes toward online shopping. It further underlines the importance of relative advantage and trust as major contributors to building positive attitudes toward online shopping. In developing countries (e.g. Jordan) where individuals are generally described as risk averse, the level of trust is critical in determining the attitude of individuals toward online shopping. Moreover and given the modest economic situation in Jordan, relative advantage is another significant factor affecting consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Indeed, if online shopping would not add a significant value and benefits to consumers, they would have negative attitude toward this technology. This is at the heart of marketing theory and relationship marketing practice. Further, relative advantage is a key predictor of both perceived website image and trust and the later is a major driver of attitudes toward online shopping. Online retailers’ executives and managers can benefit from such findings for future e-marketing strategies and retaining customers to achieve long-term performance objectives.

This paper is one of the early empirical endeavors that examined factors affecting attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. This study provides evidence on the factors that determine online shoppers’ attitudes as an antecedent to consumers purchase decisions. From a theoretical perspective, this study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by revealing the sort of cause and effect relationships among relative advantage, perceived website reputation, perceived website image, in addition to trust, and their effect on consumers’ attitudes toward online shopping. Moreover, this paper is one of handful research that has distinguished between perceived website image and perceived website reputation along with their relationships and more specifically in the context of online shopping. From an international e-marketing perspective, online retailers planning to expand their operations to include Jordan or the MENA Region have now valuable empirical evidence concerning the predictors of online shopping attitudes and online shoppers’ behavior upon which e-marketing strategies are formulated and implemented.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among the quality of word‐of‐mouth (WOM), online trust, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and online shopping intention in the online shopping mall. This study presented participation and response of others on bulletin boards or product review sections as the factors that affect the quality of WOM through literature review.

A theoretical review and an empirical study were conducted and the hypotheses were tested through the empirical analysis.

The paper finds that participation and response of others on bulletin board or product review section have positive effects on the quality of WOM. It was revealed that the quality of WOM has positive effects on online trust, and online trust has positive effects on perceived usefulness, shopping intension and perceived ease of use. In addition, the results demonstrated that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have positive effects on shopping intention.

Many studies on online shopping malls are mostly focused on the effects of following the action by positive or negative WOM. This study examines the factors that determine the quality of online WOM, and it seeks to examine the effects of such WOM on the following actions such as online trust and purchase intention.

The purpose of this paper is to test an augmented technology acceptance model (TAM) in the online financial trading context. This research aims to investigate how e‐investors are influenced by perceived trust, security, and privacy jointly with traditional TAM constructs.

The research examines e‐investors' behavioral intention to use online dealers' and stockbrokers' services. The model suggests that perceived trust jointly with perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are important antecedents of intentions; the hypotheses are statistically tested using structural modeling.

The results from this study suggest that perceived trust, usefulness and ease of use are important issues in online trading systems. The findings suggest that online financial dealers and stockbrokers must improve the security of the online system since e‐investors form perceptions about its perceived security and when these perceptions are confirmed, their trust is enhanced and consequently they are more likely to use these online services particularly if the financial information is useful for their purposes.

The findings of the present study have various implications for research as well as practice. First, perceived trust, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are critical to the success of an online trading system. Second, perceived privacy did not influence users' beliefs in trust. Since perceived trust and perceived usefulness are the most important antecedents of behavioral intention, managers can increase e‐investors' usage intention by improving their beliefs in how the online trading system can enhance their performance and effectiveness using a system with enough security mechanisms. The major limitation is that trust is examined as a single‐dimension construct.

This paper is one of the first that has empirically tested the link between trust, security, privacy, usefulness, ease of use and behavioral intention in the online trading context.

As technology has increasingly disrupted traditional commerce, there is a need for inclusive growth to ensure that no group – particularly the underprivileged – is left behind. Against this backdrop, this paper aims to shed light on mobile commerce (m-commerce) adoption among street vendors. This study conducts an experiment to investigate the contribution of online reviews and relevant factors in enhancing the perceived usefulness and adoption of m-commerce.

This study used a 2 (perceived ease of use: high vs low) × 2 (trust in service provider: high vs low) × 2 (online review: positive vs negative) between-subjects design, resulting in eight experimental groups. The level of the online review was manipulated, and the degrees of perceived ease of use and trust were measured.

Perceived usefulness depends on online reviews when users perceive incongruent information (e.g. high ease of use but low trust); that is, users who saw positive reviews more strongly perceived the usefulness of m-commerce. On the contrary, perceived usefulness does not vary based on online reviews if users perceive congruent information (e.g. high ease of use and high trust).

This research advances the knowledge of m-commerce adoption by exploring the interaction of perceived ease of use, trust and online reviews, a combination that has not been addressed in previous empirical studies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine consumer attitudes toward online shopping in Jordan. The paper introduces an integrated model which includes trust, perceived benefits, perceived web quality, and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) along with their relationships in order to examine their effects on consumer attitudes toward online shopping.

A structured and self-administered online survey was employed targeting online shoppers of a reputable online retailer in Jordan; i.e. MarkaVIP. A sample of 273 online shoppers was involved in the online survey. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used to assess the research constructs, unidimensionality, validity, and composite reliability. Structural path model analysis was also used to test the hypothesized relationships of the research model.

The empirical findings of this study indicate that consumer attitudes toward online shopping is determined by trust and perceived benefits. Trust is a product of perceived web quality and eWOM and that the latter is a function of perceived web quality. Hence, trust and perceived benefits are key predictors of consumer attitudes toward online shopping, according to the results. Further, the authors also found that higher levels of perceived web quality lead to higher levels of trust in an online shopping web site. Perceived web quality was found to be a direct predictor of trust, and the former positively and significantly influences perceived benefits. Also, the authors found that 28 percent of the variation in online shopping attitudes was caused by perceived benefits and trust.

The research sample included only early adopters who are usually described as personal innovators and risk takers. Future research is encouraged to focus on other groups such as non-adopters to understand their online shopping attitudes. Another limitation is derived from the geographical context of the current study; that is Jordan. The findings are not necessarily applicable to other Arab countries and the rest of the world. Therefore, replications of the current study in different countries would most likely strengthen and validate its findings. Also, the study is cross-sectional which does not show how attitudes of consumers may change over time. The authors encourage future studies to employ a longitudinal design to understand the changes in consumers’ attitudes toward using online shopping over time. Finally, this study examined only one case in point and thus findings cannot be generalized to other online shopping web sites. Future research is highly encouraged to examine consumers’ attitudes toward other online shopping web sites inside and outside Jordan.

The paper supports the importance of trust and perceived benefits as key drivers of attitudes toward online shopping in emerging markets like Jordan. It further underlines the importance of perceived web quality contribution to perceived benefits and trust as well as the key role of the later in forming online shoppers’ attitudes. Online retailers’ executives and managers can benefit from such findings for future e-marketing strategies and acquire new customers to achieve long-term performance objectives.

This paper is one of the very few attempts that examined attitudes toward online shopping in the Arab world. Importantly, it revealed the drivers of online shoppers’ attitudes in Jordan. National and international online retailers planning to expand their operations to Jordan or to the Middle East Region have now valuable empirical evidence concerning the determinants of online shopping attitudes and online shoppers’ behavior in Jordan upon which e-marketing strategies can be formulated and implemented.

The theoretical understanding of online shopping behaviour has received much attention. Less focus has been given to online retailing ethics. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop and test a comprehensive model of online retailing ethics.

The study used a survey amongst a sample representative of universities across Egypt. In total, 310 questionnaire were collected and analysed using structure equation modelling using WarpPLS.

The results indicate that the consumer perceptions of online retailing ethics (CPORE) as a second-order construct is composed of five constructs (security, privacy, non-deception, fulfilment/reliability, and service recovery) and strongly predictive of online consumer satisfaction. Furthermore, the authors find a significant mediating effect of trust, and commitment on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. The results also show that individualism had moderate effects on the relationship between CPORE and customer satisfaction. Contrary to expectations, power distance had no significant effect.

Despite the contributions of this study some research limitations need acknowledgment. First, this study employed a convenience sample. The authors encourage future studies to use random sampling of general consumers. The ethics literature identifies some factors which influence ethical judgments of consumers (e.g. sex, age, and education). Such research could identify how each variable, individually and cooperatively, impacts consumer ethical evaluations of online retailing. The authors did not collect data from non-internet shoppers because the focus of this study was online consumers referring to their latest purchase online. It may be an interesting extension, however, to test this conceptual model for other populations like non-online consumers.

This study developed and empirically tested a comprehensive model of CPORE with its multidimensional constructs and evaluated its impact on both consumer satisfaction and repurchase intention via trust and commitment.

The coronavirus pandemic has created a new wave of first-time online shoppers in both industrialized and emerging countries. More interestingly, scholars and practitioners expect this transition to online shopping to eventually persist in the next few years. The current research study aims to investigate the factors explaining attitudes toward online shopping. The authors propose an integrated model in which trust mediates the effects of relative advantage and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on attitudes toward online shopping. The moderating effect of gender was also assessed using the multigroup analysis (MGA).

Based on data collected from 378 Moroccan online shoppers, the authors empirically tested the hypothesized model using a partial least squares (PLS) estimation.

First, relative advantage, eWOM and trust significantly impact consumer attitudes toward online shopping; at the same time, trust is influenced by relative advantage and eWOM. Second, results confirm that trust mediates the effects of relative advantage and eWOM on attitudes toward online shopping. Third, the MGA reveals that female consumers tend to exhibit a stronger effect of eWOM on trust and on attitudes toward online shopping.

Most relevant studies have focused on the main predictors of attitudes toward online shopping but did not suggest mediating and moderating factors that can help in explaining indirect effects. The present paper bridges a gap pertaining to antecedents of attitudes toward online shopping by incorporating the mediating effect of online trust. The authors also examine gender disparities related to the predictors of trust and consumer attitudes toward online shopping. This study is the first of its kind to investigate the antecedents of attitudes toward online shopping in an African country.